Mindfulness meditation increases interictal epileptiform discharges in meditation-naïve surgical epilepsy patients.
Epilepsia June 16, 2026 Shweta Soni, Karine Brochu, Paolo Federico et al.
In patients with drug-resistant epilepsy, both focused attention and open monitoring meditation increased interictal epileptiform discharge (IED) density compared to story listening, but not compared to classical music listening. The relationship between IED density and perceived meditation depth changed across meditative levels, indicating a dynamic interplay between neural excitability and subjective meditative engagement. This exploratory study provides intracranial evidence that meditation can transiently modulate epileptic network dynamics in meditation-naïve epilepsy patients, suggesting a functional coupling between meditative states and cortical excitability.